Editor who published Steele dossier has some regrets, 'more ambivalent' than ever about memo

Ben Smith, former editor-in chief of Buzzfeed who published the Christopher Steele dossier on Donald Trump back in January 2017, said on his own podcast that he’s "more ambivalent" than ever before about the decision to publish the debunked intelligence memo.

Smith, now editor-in-chief of Semafor, also admitted he has "some regrets" about the matter 8 years later.

Smith and co-host Max Tani had guest Ezra Klein on their "Mixed Signals" podcast, which included a discussion on comparisons between Trump's first and second terms.

"Back on the horse in the hospital years, I mean, it was also a media environment, which at least I felt, I was running BuzzFeed then, that a lot of our readers felt, and a lot of Democrats felt like there’s no way this guy was legitimately elected. There are two theories," Smith said. "One, it was Facebook, two, it was Russia, and lots of media energy went into chasing those two things. The White House felt totally under siege from that set of questions. I think I have some regrets about that in retrospect. Do you?"

Klein responded, "Do you regret publishing the dossier? Is that what you’re saying? Is that the admission here, Ben?"

Smith said, "Is that the headline? I would say I’m more ambivalent about it than I used to be."

Tani replied, "Oh sh*t, we made news on our own podcast. You’re not supposed to make news, Ezra is supposed to make news."